Government and public differ over teaching gender identity in schools

YouGov reports a new poll following the news that the government wants to ban schools in England from teaching about gender identity. The poll finds that the public disagrees, with 2:1 support for such teaching to take place:

The results suggest around three in ten Britons don’t want teaching about gender identity issues to take place in school … [and] around six in ten Britons – and two thirds of parents – indicate that schools should teach these topics, although the public are relatively evenly split on at what age that should happen.

Across all the poll’s questions, the views of parents and non-parents are very similar.

It’s also worth noting that this is another poll which finds women more supportive of trans rights in various forms than men, despite the way these issues are sometimes framed (see my piece for The Week in Polls for more).

As YouGov reports this time:

Across all groups, the biggest differences are on gender identity topics. Women, younger people, and Labour voters are notably more likely to say that transgender and non-binary identities should be covered in sex education than their male, older and Tory voting counterparts.

Lib Dem voters are (with small crosstab sample size caveat) even more supportive than Labour voters.

Get the essential polling book